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Russell Society members information pages and contributions.
If you have any contributions, articles or pictures of interest to other mineral collectors or Russell Society members, or have any requests for information, books, specimens, classified adverts, etc. then please email them to who will include them on this page.
Max Wirth AGM 2008 Pictures Photographic Competition New Newsletter Editor Library List The RS President
Membership Secretary Sir Arthur Russell Classified
Max Wirth, Northern Branch.
The Society has been informed of the death of Northern Branch member Max Wirth. Roy Starkey passed on the information with these comments; "A note to let you know that after being in hospital since mid-March Max died peacefully in his sleep at the Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal at around 9pm yesterday evening [22nd April]. In accordance with his wishes there will be no funeral service, but it is possible that his daughter Rozanne may organise a small ceremony to scatter his ashes at some point in the future. I had visited Max twice in the past few weeks and he was very calm and at peace with the world. I shall miss him greatly but we can all remember the many good times, his extraordinary abilities to 'do stuff' with the most primitive equipment and materials, and his razor sharp sense of humour."
Max was a very active member of the Society and was Treasurer in the early years. His love was the Caldbeck Fells and he collected all over the area. The picture shows Max, on the left in yellow enjoying lunch with Bev Yates at Red Gill mine in August 1987. He was later to identify and report native silver from here (J. Russ. Soc. 2(2), 49 (1989). Photograph by Frank Ince
Society AGM 2008 Report and Pictures.
The Russell Society National AGM 2008 hosted by the Southern Branch at the University of Bath was a complete success and thoroughly enjoyed by all the members attending. Even the weather was kind to us on the Friday and Sunday field trips.
The weekend was themed around the mineralogy of the Bristol area with a booklet on the mines and minerals of the area being given to all delegates. Bristol City Museum and Art gallery hosted a visit by delegates on the Friday and staged a display of local minerals at the symposium.
A report on the weekend has been compiled, including over forty photographs and can be accessed by clicking on the AGM logo left or on this link.
Grateful thanks go to the following people who helped make the weekend such a success. The Southern Branch Committee who organised and managed the whole event:
Would like to thank our speakers and exhibitors:
Other Southern Branch members who contributed:
Other people who helped make the weekend great:
Society Photographic Competition 2008 - Winners.
The Russell Society held a Photographic Competition for 2008 that was open to all Society members. There were three categories and members were able to submit maximum of six prints. The categories were:
Judging took place on Friday 22nd February 2008 at the Charnwood Museum, Loughborough (Central Branch). The judge was Robert Hawkesworth FRPS of Nottingham. Prizes were awarded for the best entry in each section. Runners up were awarded 'Highly Commended' certificates. Third places were awarded 'Certificates of Merit'.
A selection of submitted images were exhibited at the Russell Society AGM in Bath (March 28-30, 2008). Some will be used in Society publications and the winners are published on this web site.
To see the top three photographs in each category please click on the photograph or this link.
New Newsletter Editor.
It has been common knowledge for a good while to all members that the Society Newsletter Editor Jim Robinson was going to stand down from this position. We now have a new Editor from the start of 2008.
Under Jim's editorship the Newsletter continued to be an excellent publication with a number of significant improvements in its format. I am sure that all members would like to thank Jim for all his efforts and commitment to the Newsletter (and the Journal) over the last 9 years.
We are pleased to announce that Mick Cooper has agreed to take Jim's place as Newsletter Editor, so please give him your full support. Obviously Mick will only be able to publish the material that he receives. If you can provide Mick with any items that you feel would be suitable for inclusion in the Newsletter: branch or individual reports (field trips, mineral shows, museum visits, etc), new information on minerals, locations or the mineral extraction industries, mineral "gossip", etc; in fact anything of mineralogical interest he will eternally grateful.
For submission details please click on the Newsletter cover to link to the Publications Page.
The Russell Society Library.
The Russell Society has an extensive library of books, mineralogical journals and papers available for loan by Members. Many of these are no longer in print and it is an excellent resource for research or information. There are also some interesting books that make a good read. The original Library List was issued with Newsletter No. 41 which included instructions on how to order books for loan. The latest revision is now March 2008 with many new items on the list.
The updated Library List is
available here and can be downloaded as an Adobe
PDF file that can be searched if required. You will
need Adobe Reader® or other PDF reader to view this file.
The Russell Society President - Rick Turner.
I have always been interested in minerals and have collected them from an early age, helped by a father who was an engineer involved in building equipment for metal mines in South America. This led to a steady flow of attractive specimens guaranteed to attract the attention of a small boy - beautiful lustrous pyrites from Peru, chrysocolla from Chile, and so on. This started my collection, and it grew steadily whilst I was at school.
As I prefer doing something practical, I eventually decided to study mining engineering rather than geology and went to Leeds University. Here I had the good fortune to meet the very well known mineralogist Oleg von Knorring. I spent many hours working with him and we became good friends, our friendship and collaboration continuing up to his death in 1994. Oleg's forte was chemical mineralogy, and it was from him that I gained an interest in exotic mineral chemistry and geochemistry. Most of these weird things are very small, of course, and this in turn is what first fed me into micromounting. We shared interests in the mineralogy of Tsumeb, pegmatites, and uranium secondaries so much of the work done at that time was in these areas. When I finished my degree, I moved to South Africa and worked for some years in production gold and diamond mining. In between times, I indulged my interest in exotic minerals and spent a lot of time in Namibia working on lithium bearing granite pegmatites. These of course are also rich in beryllium and heavy metals such as tantalum (not to mention gem minerals - predominantly tourmaline and beryl).
I collect mostly micromounts, and my main collection contains about 12,000 specimens. The main geographical focus is on the South-Western USA and southern Africa. The collection includes a systematic one which covers something like 75% of known species. I have always been interested in minerals and have collected them from an early age, helped by a father who was an engineer involved in building equipment for metal mines in South America. This led to a steady flow of attractive specimens guaranteed to attract the attention of a small boy - beautiful lustrous pyrites from Peru, chrysocolla from Chile, and so on. This started my collection, and it grew steadily whilst I was at school.
Change of Membership Secretary.
The new Russell Society Membership Secretary is Dave Ferris from the Southern Branch. In future all matters relating to membership should be adressed to Dave. His contact details are given on the Society Officers page.
Sir Arthur Russell
As all members will know, I hope, the Russell Society was named after the eminent amateur mineralogist Sir Arthur Edward Ian Montagu Russell (1878 - 1964). Sadly there is a singular lack of information about Sir Arthur on the internet so I have now included on the Russell Society website a copy of an article by Alan Hart and Bob Symes, first published in the Journal of the Russell Society Vol. 4 Part 1 1991, to try and give visitors to the site some information on the greatest British mineral collector of the last century, after whom the Society is named. On the page are a couple of pictures of Sir Arthur and his home at Swallowfield Park, near Reading. The house and extensive grounds are now owned by the Country Houses Association. It is open on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, 2 - 5 pm, from May to September. Also on the page are some pictures of specimens originally collected by Russell and some of labels from the National Museums and Galleries of Wales. These are from specimens in their collection of minerals in the Harwood Collection.
I would like to include more of his specimens and labels or notes. If anybody has any photographs they can supply for inclusion I would be very grateful. These can be sent to the contact address above. Click here or on the picture to view the biography page.
There are a number of Russell labels shown on the Mineralogical Record, Biographical Label Archive, with some relating to specimens acquired from old collections that are of particular interest.
Members Classified Adverts
R.F.D. Parkinson - Information Wanted.
Whilst researching the "Minerals of the Mendips" book I tried to find out more information on Reginald Francis Derek Parkinson (after whom parkinsonite is named). Reg was a prominent collector of minerals from the Mendips and ran a mineral business from Doulting near Shepton Mallet. Unfortunately there appears to be little or no information about Reg and and his collecting or collection. He was a member of the Russell Society up to 1978 but then he lapsed and no further information is available. It is thought that he passed away but I can find no date or obituary.
If possible I would like to put together a short history of Reg and am looking for any information, pictures, letters etc. If you have any information you can e-mail me on . It would be shame if the person after whom the mineral is named should drift into obscurity so that his memory only lives on in the mineral name with no supporting biography. Thanks Gary Morse.
The photograph is from the RS Newsletter No 4 and shows Reg (sixth from right) leading a field trip to Higher Pitts Farm in 1976.
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